I’ve just returned from a trip away, spending six days in Toronto, Canada to celebrate my brother’s wedding, followed by five days sightseeing in New York.
I learned a few things along the way, not least that it is possible for a city to continue to function, even in 50cm of snow.
Toronto’s formidable fleet of snow ploughs and gritters means roads are quickly cleared, people are out walking on the pathways and even the trams still run on time.
Its 30 kilometre Path network of underground tunnels linking up metro stations, offices, shops and arenas, in which you can stop for lunch or even get a haircut, is also something to behold.
And in New York, I learned the double dribble rule in basketball and that a $1.50 slice of pepperoni pizza isn’t anywhere near as bad as you might think.
But maybe the most useful thing I discovered – if not the most exciting – was how to use a travel eSim to save myself from sky-high mobile phone bills abroad.
E-asy breezy? Using an Esim allows you to get mobile data on holiday, whether you are headed to the beach or a snowy city break – but you have to go through the set-up process first
At the outset it seemed overly technical and a bit daunting, with a long list of instructions to follow to get it set up.
In reality, though, it was quite easy – and saved me hundreds of pounds compared to paying my network’s roaming charges.
I’d definitely use one again, especially as UK phone networks are now charging customers as much as £8 per day for their daily use-abroad passes.
There were only a couple of slip-ups along the way – including incurring the wrath of an Uber driver in a snowstorm.
Here’s how eSims work, my experience of using one and the pros and cons.
What is an eSim?
An embedded sim, or eSim for short, does the same job as your regular Sim – allowing you to connect to a mobile phone network.
The difference is that you don’t need to insert a physical chip into your phone. Instead everything is done digitally.
They are available for everyday, domestic phone contracts on some UK networks, but aren’t hugely popular.
Where they are gaining ground is among international travellers.
The benefit of a travel eSim is that it allows you to connect to a local mobile phone network in the country you’re visiting, for the purposes of using mobile data.
You simply need to switch the sim you are using from your physical, UK one to the eSim in your phone’s settings.
It’s important to know that phone calls and texts usually aren’t included, so you’ll need to make any calls or send messages via an internet-based service such as Whatsapp.
You select the country, or countries, you want when purchasing the eSim, and this allows you access to multiple phone networks, meaning you should be able to access 3G, 4G or 5G signal wherever a local would.
For most people, this will be cheaper than roaming via your UK network.
Travel eSims can be purchased from specialist providers, with some of the most popular including Airalo, Orange Travel, Nomad, Breeze, Saily and Holafly. The Post Office also offers them, through a provider called eSim Choice.
To get started, head to one or more of the above websites and enter your destination to see the deals they have on offer.
Seeing the sights: Having access to mobile data on holiday is useful to help you get around – and I would have been lost without online maps on my trip to New York
Who needs to use an eSim?
If you aren’t bothered about using the internet abroad, or are happy to simply log in to free wifi networks to check your emails or browse social media when you can, an eSim probably isn’t for you.
Additionally, if you are on a network or contract which offers free roaming in your destination, you don’t need to worry – but these are dwindling in number.
Before Brexit, virtually all phone networks offered free roaming in most EU countries – but today only a handful do.
If you go abroad and simply switch your phone on and use mobile data, you’ll be subject to roaming charges which can be sky-high.
For example, my network would charge £9.60 per MB of data – and for reference, posting a picture on social media uses about 4MB.
To reduce the cost, most networks sell packages (also known as bolt-ons or bundles) where you pay a daily fixed fee to use your phone as normal.
Networks split up countries into different ‘zones’ and generally, those closer to home in Europe will be cheaper and more far-flung destinations will be more expensive. They might also impose limits on how much data you can use.
If you’re considering one of these packages it pays to do your research, as an eSim may well be cheaper.
If I was only travelling to the US, my UK network would allow me to use my phone for five days there for a fee of £20, which would have given me 10GB of data to use.
But if I chose an eSim for just the US, I could have had unlimited data for five days for as little as £12.
A decent saving, and no more worries about spending too long trying to find the Met museum on Google Maps.
Where it can save even more is if your phone network doesn’t offer a fixed package for the country you’re travelling to.
In Canada, my phone network didn’t offer a bolt-on – so I’d be subject to the standard roaming charge of an eye-watering £9.60 per MB of data.
Based on my normal daily usage at home, that would be a painful £375 per day.
It’s not quite as bad as that in reality, as my network – like many others – imposes daily cap of £45 on roaming charges.
This was a requirement under EU law, but some networks have maintained it voluntarily post-Brexit.
However, £45 is still much more than I was prepared to pay – prompting my foray into the world of eSims.
How much do Esims cost?
It depends on how much data you want, how long you want to use it for, and which – and how many – countries you need it to cover.
Most people will pay between about £5 and £30.
A quick check of the main providers shows a traveller heading to Dubai for one week could pay as little as £4 for 1GB of data. For 20GB, that would rise to about £30 and the allowance could be used for 30 days.
And someone going to Spain for a fortnight could pay as little as £5.50 for 2GB of data, or £7 for 5GB. If they wanted 20GB, that would rise to about £22.
One of the drawbacks with eSims is that the time limits aren’t that flexible. Most are for 7, 15 or 30 days, and once you get in to 5GB-plus of data I found most plans were 30-day only.
It doesn’t matter if your trip is shorter, as you can switch the eSim off on your return – but it is a bit annoying to pay for time you aren’t using.
I paid £21.50 for an eSim which lasted 30 days (though I only needed 11) which gave me 5GB of data.
I paid more because it was a ‘regional’ eSim covering three countries – the US, Canada and Mexico – rather than just one. I didn’t need the Mexico coverage, but this was still cheaper than other options.
The other options are ‘local’ eSims, which cover just one country, and ‘global’ eSims which cover the majority of countries in the world.
I paid £21 for a ‘regional’ eSim covering three countries for my trip to the US and Canada
The hard part: How to set up an eSim
This is the part that almost put me off using an eSim.
First, it is vital to check your phone supports an eSim before you buy one. If it doesn’t, it won’t work.
Most modern phones will support one, and eSim providers publish a list of compatible phones on their websites for you to check.
You can also check yourself. On an iPhone, go to settings, then mobile service. If you see the option to ‘add eSim’ it is supported.
On a Samsung Galaxy, head to settings, connections and then Sim manager, and you should also see an option to add eSim if it is supported.
Instructions for other phone models are easy to find online.
Your phone also needs to be carrier unlocked, meaning it can be used on any network.
Once you’ve checked your phone is compatible, you need to purchase your eSim from the provider’s website. I did this the day before I left for my trip.
I’d also recommend downloading your eSim provider’s app at this point. The one I used had a handy counter which showed how much data I had left, and also gave me the option to top it up if needed.
Once you’ve bought it, you’ll be sent an activation code. After you have that, you’ll need to go back into your phone’s settings and add the eSim.
I was worried this would be complicated, but the provider I chose sent detailed step-by-step instructions.
These required a few minutes to read, but meant it was hard to go too far wrong. Essentially, you are finding the right place in your phone’s settings to copy and paste your code and install your new eSim.
Tweaks: Users must change their settings to make sure their eSim is the default for mobile data, to avoid roaming charges
You can give it a name you’ll recognise, so I called mine ‘US and Canada’. If you’re not abroad yet, you can pause here.
Just before arriving in your destination, you will need to tweak your phone’s settings, so that your phone uses the eSim to access mobile data and not your regular, UK one – avoiding any accidental charges. I did this on the plane just before landing.
I won’t go through this step by step, as it varies depending on what make of phone you have – and again, your eSim provider will give you detailed instructions.
At the least, you want to make sure your eSim is the default option for using mobile data, and that ‘data switching’ is turned off.
This means that, when you are abroad, your phone won’t switch back to your UK plan if it can’t receive data on the eSim.
For phone calls, also known as the ‘primary voice line’ you could opt to keep your UK number on, as phone calls can’t be received on an eSim.
However, I found it easier to simply switch off my UK Sim altogether to make sure I wasn’t charged for any incoming calls or texts from home.
Any calls I needed to make were done via Whatsapp on the eSim. Once I did this, I was good to go and didn’t need to do anything until I switched back to my regular Sim at the end of the holiday.
I did make sure to turn on aeroplane mode whenever I wasn’t using the internet, in order to conserve my 5GB of data and connect to secure wifi in hotels and restaurants when I could.
How much data do I need on an eSim?
It all depends on how heavy a user you are. Options are available from 1GB – for people who plan to use data very sparingly – to unlimited packages for those who want to post and stream to their heart’s content.
If you go for an unlimited package, there may still be fair usage limits imposed so do read the small print.
I looked at my monthly mobile phone bill and worked out that, in a typical month at home, I used about 12GB of data.
That equates to about 390MB (or 0.39GB) per day. Multiplied by the 11 days of my trip, it would mean I’d use about 4.29GB.
However, I found that when I was away, I used more than expected. Other than in hotels,…
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